Kuala Lampur, April 19 -- In the calculus of international trade, perception is power. Nowhere is this more evident than in the way the United States (US) calculates and presents its trade deficit.

Since the 1980s, successive American administrations have focused almost exclusively on merchandise trade-exports and imports of tangible goods-while quietly downplaying, if not outright excluding, the significant surplus the US enjoys in services and sales, especially in the Asia-Pacific region.

This selective accounting distorts the real economic balance, particularly with countries like Malaysia, and fuels false anxieties about the American decline.

More dangerously, it legitimises punitive tariffs and aggressive rhetoric that harm multil...